April 1, 2013

Frequency North, March 28

This is the on-going (during the academic year) series at the College of St. Rose, but only the first one I've been able to get to this year, mainly because most of the readings are held on the third Thursday of the month when I am hosting a monthly open mic at the Social Justice Center. The curator & host of the series is Daniel Nester.

Poet & novelist Michael Meyerhofer was 1st to read, introduced by Barbara Ungar, who said she has known Micael for a long time, but only just met him. He read from his recent book of poems, Damnatio Memoriae (Brick Road Poetry Press, Columbus, GA), beginning with the very personal account (in case you were wondering) "The Man with Half an Ear Gets a Haircut." In fact, most of his poems were personal, & largely narrative, but often with the ending sort of dropped off. The stories were also mostly about his youth & school experiences, such as "The Crayon Not Taken," "Samsara" (an old job in a greasy spoon restaurant), "Field Trip" (to a morgue) & "Unrequited" (high school, of course). His poems were well-written, sometimes overly clever & frequently funny, though sometimes veering towards the silly, as in "Persephone & Oedipus." He ended with a crowd-pleaser that was like a stand-up comic routine & that contained all of the qualities I mentioned above, "How 13 Famous People Perform Cunnilingus" (in case you ever wanted to know).

Darin Strauss was introduced by his old buddy, Dan Nester. Darin is a writer of short fiction, novels & memoir (even at his young age); tonight he read from a new short story currently in search of a publisher, "The Comprehensive Strategy," a story of 2 high school freshmen trying to crash the pool party of a cheerleader one of the guys has a crush on. He proved once again that a sure-fire way to get a laugh is to use the word "boner," it appeals to all generations of listeners. For the reading he enlisted the help of students Matthew Allegretti & Juliet Barney to read the lines of the other characters in the story.

There are still more events in Frequency North at the College of St. Rose, so check it out at the website.

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About Me

Host of the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany NY, member of 3 Guys from Albany, & photographer who has "the world's largest collection of photos of unknown poets." Active member of Veterans for Peace. For listings of upcoming poetry events see the calendar on www.albanypoets.com.